The story of our Twins

Tag Archives: month to month

The girls have changed so much over the past month. They are really starting to let their personalities show. It’s so fun to watch them grow. I went back and read the blog from the boys at their age and it’s crazy to see that their personalities today aren’t much different than they were at 10 months old. It makes me excited for the girls as they are the sweetest right now.

Similarities

They’re both speed crawling everywhere and standing up on everything. They’re also starting to shimmy along the surfaces to get across the room. They never sit still. Taking photos this month was near impossible. I can see why I only did the month to month with the boys until they were a year old.

They’re wearing size 4 diapers.

Whenever someone comes around they crawl over to say hello. Makes it hard when I walk downstairs to get a glass of water and I feel bad running by them. I try to go over to the gate since they’re baby gated into the living room and say hi through the “cage”. If you ask them to come over they listen!

Favorite food: anything they can grab with their hands… scrambled eggs and puffs are their current favorites.

Favorite toy: besides Paty?… they like the magniblocks and anything they can put in their mouths.

They’re still eating every 3 hours off of me but are getting 3 meals a day of other solids. I try to feed them on me first otherwise they will refuse to drink.

The girls hair is finally long enough to put some bows in. Although I did and they immediately ripped them out of each other’s hair. It looked painful so I’ll save the bows for photos only.

They love Paty.

The girls are both an intersting combination of Anthony and Nathan. Emily has Anthony’s body shape but Nathan’s eyes. Olivia has Nathan’s body shape and Anthony’s eyes. Both of them have more relaxed personalities.

They both love electronics. If my phone is nearby or my computer… they’re getting hacked.

They’re down to two naps a day, typically the morning nap is longer than the one in the afternoon.

At night they’re getting closer and closer to sleeping through the night. The past few days they’ve gone from 10 pm’ish to 6 am’ish… we’ll take it!

Flying the airplane

Emily

Emily is obsessed with the living room curtain. She crawls over to it and just holds it. She doesn’t put it in her mouth or anything, she just holds onto it with a giant grin. Paty got a bunch of pictures from various days of her doing it and created an instagram post. It’s hilarious.

Emily has 4 teeth and two more coming in. 2 bottom, 2 top, and two more on either side of the front two.

Ems is so funny. She will also crawl through the little tunnel we had for the boys and when she gets to the other end she’ll turn around and crawl back the other way.

Emily has the sweetest personality. She’s so gentle and calm, always smiling and rarely getting upset or impatient. Although when it comes to food she gets a little demanding.

She’ll stand for a bit on her own without holding onto anything.

Emily always keeps to herself when I’m tandem feeding them but Olivia is constantly trying to play with something. Poking at Emily and pulling her hair. I have to restrain Olivia so Emily can eat.

Olivia

Olivia loves to say “dada”. She’ll stand up in her crib and watch for him and then squeal “Dada” in the morning until Steve laughs and goes and gets her. She also likes making noises with her mouth and tongue that sound like she’s spitting.

She loves to wave. If you say hi she starts waving both hands.

Olivia played peek-a-boo with me by hiding behind the living room curtain, hiding, and then pulling it back and smiling.

Olivia doesn’t have any teeth.

She loves to dance. When we play any sort of music she’ll start swaying back and forth.

O is more sensitive than Emily when it comes to getting her way. If Emily takes one of her toys she’ll cry and look to us to help her. Whereas Emily shrugs it off and moves onto something new.

Olivia has the cutest natural curls. There is this one piece of hair on the top of her head that makes a big curl. I’m curious to see if she’ll have some waves once she gets older.

Us

We started the boys at a new school. They’re now at A Child’s Place at Notre Dame which is only about 5 minutes from our house. It’s so much nicer because we can drop them off as early as 7:30 and pick them up as late as 5:30. Much nicer than having to worry about what they were going to do from 3 pm until I was done working at 6. I think they really like the school too They’re always so excited when we pick them up from school to tell us about their day.

The boys love their sisters. They call them their “baby sisters” and are always helping them by giving them pacifiers or asking Steve and I to do something for them.

Steve and I are feeling a little better now that the girls are sleeping through the night better. I’ve finally felt like I’ve been able to cross off some of my “life” todo list items in the evenings.

Today marks the girls 1/2 birthday. They are growing up way too fast. So much faster than the boys did. It’s probably because of the chaos of having four children under the age of four but the girls have spent a lot of time watching their older brothers… and laughing at them.

Favorite thing to do: JUMP! The jumperoo and another jumping playyard that we borrowed from the Meyers has been so much fun for the girls. They literally jump for hours with big smiles on their faces.

Eating every three hours during the day and every 3 – 4 hours at night. I’m sooo ready for them to start sleeping through the night. That being said they are the best babies. It takes about 7 minutes to feed them and then they fall asleep on me and Steve carries them back to their cribs.

They’ve tried solids – mostly rice cereal, carrots, and apples

The girls get sooo distracted nursing these days. A quiet place away from lights, sounds *cough brothers cough*, and moving things is the best choice for a nursing spot. Even if Paty is in the room they (especially Olivia) will stop nursing and just grin at her.

They can now both roll both ways: back to front and front to back.

They are starting to notice each other a lot. They’re always grabbing at each other. Which sometimes results in a few tears when hair is being pulled. It’s almost like they are an extension of each other. Emily’s arm is also Olivia’s third arm.

Emily is every day more of her daddy’s little meatball than she was the day before. She is getting so big and round. I love it when she grabs her feet and curls into a little ball.

Emily has Nathan’s eyes. The color is gorgeous! I’m so glad one of the girls got his magnificent eyes.

Emily is always chatting.

Olivia

Height: 26″ (50%)

Weight: 15 lbs 3 oz (27%)

Head Circumference: 16 3/4″ (52%)

So happy, Olivia is always smiling/grinning and laughing. If she is sad something is definitely wrong. She reminds me of how Nathan was as a baby.

Olivia has Anthony’s eyes. I love their shape, they are beautiful.

Olivia has started to do this clicking sound with her tongue. I think she is mimicking Paty because sometimes Paty will do that towards the girls.

Us

I still have my linea nigra, it’s very very faint though. Almost gone.

I’m wasting away. I weighed myself this morning and I’m 123 lbs. That is much smaller than I was in high school. I think it’s time to get the girls on solids so I can gain some muscles back.

My hair is no longer falling out! It’s even starting to grow back in a few places. Phew! I was worried I was thinning out too much.

Steve took the liberty of removing all chances of additional children. Despite my complaints he went ahead and got a vasectomy. So now every first moment with the girls is also my last-first which makes every moment that much bigger.

Everything is going great with our au pair, Paty. We love her. It’s hard to believe she’s only been here for 2 months, seems like she’s been part of the family forever.

The girls aren’t speaking Portuguese… yet.

The boys are still going to school until 3 pm and hanging out with Miss Alissa until 6. We definitely have a ton of help with the kids which makes it easier to enjoy the precious moments we have with them. Speaking of we got a membership to Port Discovery, the childrens museum in Baltimore, and they LOVE it. It’s fun to watch them sprint to all the different activities.

I have fallen in love. Not that I wasn’t already in love with these beautiful little girls but this past month has been so much fun. The girls are all smiles, all the time. They are the best babies. They laugh and giggle and always are grinning. Sometimes I’ll go to get them in the mornings and they’re just quietly looking around, no crying at all. In fact, the only time they really cry is when they have a poop, are hungry, or if they’re over tired. But even then their cries are cute, I can’t think of a better word to describe them. Our house is finally starting to get healthy again, including the girls. They have a little bit of congestion but this is probably the healthiest we’ve all been since they came home from the hospital.

Similarities

The girls are the best eaters. It takes them 6 – 8 minutes tops eating and they’re done.

They’re going 3 hours during the day between feedings.

At night they usually have a long stretch when we first put them down and then it’s shorter. Typically it’s 5 hours if we’re lucky, then 4, then 3.

They are in size 2 diapers. I ordered WAY too many diapers. I was looking back at the blog post of the boys at 4 months and I can see why I did. The girls are going to get too big before I use all of our size 2s.

The tend to poop once every 3 days. The night before a big poop they can get a little cranky but overall it’s not too bad. When they finally do go it’s typically a blow out which requires an outfit change and a butt bath.

They are so strong and love tummies.

We are still exclusively breastfeeding them. Although the pediatrician did say we could start them on solids if we wanted. She recommended some time between 4 and 6 months old.

They both have gorgeous blue eyes that look pretty similar to each other.

This month they started to notice each other. They’ll talk to each other and smile.

During their 4 month checkup they got a lot of shots: DTAP, DPV, HIB, Preunar-13, Rotarix

** the girls giggling at Paty

The hardest part about this month’s photoshoot was narrowing down which photos to use. They are all so cute!

Emily

Height: 24 1/2 ” (50th percentile)

Weight: 14 lbs (50th percentile)

Head circumference: 16″ (50th percentile)

Nicknames: “Ems” “Emmy”

Emily is so calm and patient, I love her little personality already.

Emily is loving, if Olivia is crying she starts to cry too.

She is growing some great “folds”. Changing her diaper requires a lot of careful whipping to make sure we get all the creases.

Emily has been talking a lot lately, most to herself. It’s a cute squeak noise, see the video below.

Smiling at Paty

What?!?

Olivia

Height: 24 1/4″ (49th percentile)

Weight: 13lbs 6 oz (26th percentile)

Head circumference: 16″ (50th percentile)

Nicknames: “Livia” “O”

Olivia is also calm but not as patient. She really hates noises and will cry if the boys are running around too much.

Olivia loves putting her hands in her mouth and playing with her hands in general. She’s currently got a bunch of little cuts on her face. I keep trying to cut her nails but somehow she still manages to hurt herself.

Olivia is a slobber monster. I wonder if that means she’s going to get teeth first.

Olivia doesn’t talk as much as Emily but she makes gurgling noises. She’s more the googoo gaagaa talking, whereas Emily squeals and squeaks.

During our photoshoot Paty helped to make the girls laugh and look at the camera. She brought out this really cool bubble machine and Olivia got to see bubbles for the first time. It was so cute watching her look at them and try to figure out what was happening. Check out this video: You can see her reaction as they pop on her face.

Predictions

Olivia will be the first to crawl and walk

Emily will be the first to go from a crawl to a sitting position

Emily will be the first to talk, and be more talkative

Olivia will be a little quieter

They both are going to be so smart just like their brothers

Us

I started back to work this past week. It felt good to be back and start getting a routine going. Plus I love my job so the days just fly by. The girls were so good the entire week. The hard part though was the boys. They just didn’t want to take a nap which meant I had to do a lot of screaming until Alissa got there in the afternoon. Which resulted in me making it so the boys stay at school now until 3 instead of noon. They’ll start their longer days next week. It should make it easier on Paty as well not having to feed the boys lunch every day.

I’m wasting away… I weighed 126 lbs this morning when I weighed myself which is way less than I normally weigh and probably less than I weighed in high school. I eat so much and am always starving.

The weight isn’t the only thing falling off of me, so is my hair. It happened with the boys but I don’t remember it being this bad. All of our drains are clogged and I’m pulling hair out in clumps. I am scared to comb through my hair or put it in a ponytail. I can’t wait for this post partum side effect to be over.

I’ve still got my linea negra but it’s fading.

Steve and I both have had our moments of breaking down this past month.

The boys are such great big brothers, they like to help by pressing the diaper pail button when we’re changing the girls diapers. They also enjoy putting pacifiers in their mouths or rocking them. They love their baby sisters and can even tell them a part.

Grandma and Grandpa Seacat got to spend a couple weeks with us, including their birthdays and Christmas. It was so fun to have them here. Unfortunately they had to leave us to go on vacation… whatever that is. *tear*

We got our au pair! Patricia Freitas is here! We picked her up yesterday from the bus stop. The boys have taken a liking to her and of course the girls love her. It’s fun to see how quickly she fit right into our family. I am so glad she is here and am looking forward to the coming year. One of the things I’m most looking forward to is Steve and I are even planning to do a date night on Fridays… a much needed night of just the two of us.

I can’t believe the boys are two and a half years old! They have changed so much in the last couple months and are so much fun to be around. Here are a few of the highlights:

Similarities

They are potty trained! At least during the day. There are still a few accidents at night but it’s super easy to throw the sheets in the washer in the morning. If I tell them they’ll get candy in the morning if they’re dry then they typically are. So they can do it, just need the right motivation.

They both love to help daddy cook. They pretend with some fake food or real pots and pans to make us things like pancakes and blueberry muffins.

They love to help me put lotion on the “babies” and use the doppler to listen to the heart beats. If you ask them what is in mommy’s belly they say “babies” and if you ask how many they say “one two!”. Nathan and Anthony also think they have babies in their bellies though.

It must be their age but neither boy listens very well. Going to bed every night has turned into a fight. It’s even tougher now that I’m pregnant because I can’t really wrestle them into their pj’s or pick them up and put them into their room. I hope this passes…

Speaking of, the terrible two’s are in full swing. Lots of whining, crying, and fighting. That being said it balances out with a lot of smiles, laughter, and hugs. Each night the boys make us give them a hug, a kiss, and an Eskimo kiss.

We don’t take baths anymore, instead they invade the previously peaceful alone time Steve and I used to have taking showers. They love to sit on the ground and play.

They love and hate each other. They’re definitely brothers. They are very aware of each other and play, get jealous, laugh, cry, and fight. Everything any close siblings would do…

They both can count. At least to 3, then they skip 4 and 5 and say “6,7,8,9.10” pretty fast. Somedays they’ll get all 10 digits correctly. Very smart boys.

Anthony

Unofficially weighs about 32 lbs. He’ll step on my scale and wait for the readings.

Anthony is a lot bigger than his brother. I’d say he’s got about 4 inches on him and over 4 pounds.

So particular! He is a little obsessive. It’s so strange to see. He has his Aunt Sara’s conniption about tags. He’ll cry and fight to get a tshirt off if it has a tag, until someone cuts it off. He refused to try on shoes the other day because of the price tag on the shoes.

Anthony will yell at Nathan is Nathan is doing something that would make Steve or I upset.

favorite song: Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Anthony loves to sing.

Theme Song: “Knee Knee Knee Knee Anthony”

Anthony is an awesome eater. He’ll eat almost anything we put in front of him. He likes salads (even arugula and kale)

He’s a stuffed animal guy still. Loves his “teddy” the most followed by “puppy” and “donkey”

Anthony is so caring. He worries about Nathan. If Nathan cries Anthony will give him whatever the thing was to make him happy again (toy, drink, food). And he thinks about him when Anthony is cold he’ll ask for a shirt for Nathan too.

Nathan

He weighs in at a whopping 28 lbs (according to our scale). He is a little one but so strong. Probably still not on the growth charts.

Nathan is talking, not just in complete sentences, but in complete stories. He streams a number of sentences together to tell us what is going on in his little life. He is non-stop talking. He’ll also use words like “I”, “me”, “my”, “this”, “that” which is amazing to me.

His joke-ster personality is coming out in full force. He loves to tease Anthony. Check out the video of Nathan telling Anthony that his name was Nate. Anthony gets so upset and Nathan keeps egging him on. I think it’s a sign of things to come.

Favorite Song: Humpty Dumpty, any excuse to fall down on purpose.

Theme song: Na-Na-Na Nathan

Favorite color: blue, to the point where he’ll cry if he doesnt get the blue cup or plates.

Nathan definitely got my sweet tooth. He’s more particular when it comes to what he eats than Anthony. He’s still a pretty good eater though and his favorite meal is breakfast.

Nathan loves to be naked. Most of the time when we’re playing in the backyard he’ll find some excuse to run around naked… our poor neighbors.

Still obsessed with his “B B”, a blue blanket he’s had since hew as a baby. He’s not attached to any stuffed animals.

I don’t know where this boy finds his energy. He’s always running at full speed. Luckily he’s not as fast as Anthony.

Nathan got my sweet tooth. He will do almost anything for a little sugar.

… did I mention they’re going to be the BEST big brothers?!?

Us

Steve and I are holding in there but borderline nerve breakdowns every few days. We’re so nervous about having another set of twins. I’m also pretty worried about my ever growing belly. The boys are already faster than me and in combination with their inability to listen… is scary.

I got a new job at IBM and am loving it within the Commerce organization. The days so by so fast. I got a few external recognitions lately, most recently being named one of Fast Companies 100 Most Creative People of 2015.

We’re slowly crossing things off our things to do around the house and getting ready for the next wave of kiddos. We plan on putting them in the basement (along with us) so they’re far enough away from the boys that they don’t wake them up in the night. We gave away our huge tv and put our couch in the attic. Lots of room for cribs now.